I noticed this at the local Wal-Mart today. All of the DCUC have been placed in the clearance aisle, mostly Booster Gold and Blue Beetles, but there were three sets of Wave 14, minus Alan Scott and 6 Green Lantern packs.

there were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident

Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2007 6:30 pmPosts: 1836

One Walmart in my area had placed their DCUC on their clearance area sometime last year after wave 10, when they had cleared the figures, they did not re-stock anymore. If this will be the trend for those DCUCs placed on clearance, that may be a bad sign for DCUCs at Walmarts. Hopefully not.

Guess what has invaded the action figure aisle of my closest Walmart? Barbies. Yes, I was shocked too. They're redoing their aisles and the Pink stuff somehow germinated into my action figures from two aisles away. It looked really weird. I've Never seen that before. Barbies and pink stuff next to Star Wars.

All my Walmarts pretty much have no DCUC at the moment, and I'm talking 5 or so stores and it's been that way for a while. There's one store that has not had a SINGLE DC MATTEL TOY since before Christmas 2009. No DCUC , No DCIH, no Action League, not even a Batman Brave and The Bold. One of my stores has "GL Figure Asst" listed for the reset but I don't have much hope that they'll get anything.

I think this may be the new normal for toys now. Walmart specifically has been very, very cautious on stocking too many toys over the last 18 months or so.

With Walmart giving groceries and pharmacy a larger share of the store aisles, and toys not being a very profitable product overall, it not too surprising to see the toy presence diminishing. It seems we're heading into a primarily movie-based toy foundation for store buying preferences... even more than previously.

Smaller non-movie toy lines, or toy lines without a big marketing push may not make it into Walmart anymore. Boys toys is one aisle, girls toys is one aisle, toddlers have an aisle and there's sort of a catch-all aisle for non category stuff. That's it for the Walmarts in my area.

When xmas comes around we'll see the green aisle bins with seasonal toys for sure, but that will probably be it for any real toy presence at Walmart (and possibly Target) through the year, and moving forward. Walmart has made an obvious effort to reduce their overall toy inventory. The times they be a changing (even more).

Yes, toys at Wal-Mart have been reduced significantly in the last year and a half, and seems to be going that way further. This is grim news for the Wal-Mart exclusive wave for 2011 (wave 19?) and I hope it isn't a wave 5 situation all over again. Time will tell I guess. I am still looking for a Gold figure myself, and going on a run Tuesday so I am hoping to find him tomorrow.

The toy reduction is a major reason for a lot of this. Space will be given to those properties that sell very well or have a media tie-in. Personally, Kung Zhu has more of my interest than GI JOE. A terrible movie and lackluster toyline has essentially killed it for me in the same way that Michael Bay ruined Transformers. I would not be shocked if DCUC shows up again more places along with the GL movie items in March. BatB is something of a line on life support, so I would not be shocked if many WM's do not have any.

_________________"The rich take what belongs to everyone, and claim that they have the right to own it, to monopolize it."- St. Basil the Great

I have two Walmarts near me. Last year, one got in a giant load of wave 10 around Christmas and just before a remodel that turned the normal Walmart into a Super. There was such an over saturation of 10 that they finally marked them down to $2 to move them. When the remodel was complete, we too had the shrunken toy section- and no DCUC.

This year, what does the other Super Walmart do? Same massive over-order of 14. I fear that this means the end of DCUC in my area Walmarts, cus these puppies aren't moving, and if they shrink the toy section at this Walmart as well, then DCUC will be one of the first to go.

Some of my Walmarts have dropped toy space. A couple fairly significantly. Others haven't changed anything as far as I can tell.

I haven't noticed a significant change at Target, either.

Might be time to join several of you in the "buy it online" club. There's something in my DNA that makes me loath paying for shipping, but if the space for my lines doesn't even exist in the store . . . what else am I supposed to do?

_________________Leave it up to a billionaire to buy the world some time --- Tony Stark

My store's reset has moved the DCUCs around the corner to the next aisle with 3 pegs for DCUC and 2 shelf slots below it for GLCs (with Brave and the Bold to the left and Action League to the right), so Walmart hasn't given up on DCUC but it seems that they might be adjusting the stores that do get them.